Republicans are facing a leadership drama as they take control of the House Tuesday. House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy appears to lack support to become speaker ahead of key vote.
As the 118th Congress convenes, the first order of House business will be election of a new speaker, and current Republican leader Kevin McCarthy could be stymied by a group of hardliners demanding concessions.
Because the GOP holds only a slim majority, a small number of defections could stop McCarthy from gaining the office he's long sought.
As the House prepares to usher in the 118th Congress and new Republican majority on Tuesday, GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy is struggling to secure enough support for his bid to be House speaker to avoid a protracted and historic fight on the House floor.
The California congressman has lobbied his fellow Republicans for months and made several concessions to a small but outspoken bloc of conservatives. But the efforts have not yet produced the breakthrough McCarthy needs to be elected House speaker in the first round of voice voting, which is expected to take place shortly after noon ET.
In order to be elected speaker, McCarthy needs support from a majority of the members who vote Tuesday, or 218 of the 434 House members expected to vote. But with only 222 Republicans total, and no Democrats expected to vote for him, McCarthy can afford to lose only four members of his caucus
As of Tuesday morning, six current Republican members and three members-elect, all conservatives, still publicly opposed McCarthy. McCarthy also faced months of organized opposition from influential conservative outside groups, which have amplified his critics on social media.
McCarthy's failure to win public support from his entire caucus has already cast a shadow over the new Republican majority, exposing divisions within the party that have existed for decades. The differences were deepened by former President Donald Trump, who emboldened a small band of ultra-conservatives.
Trump eventually backed McCarthy's bid for speaker, as did other influential conservatives such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.
House Republicans began Tuesday morning with a caucus meeting that was viewed as McCarthy's final opportunity to make his pitch to members who might be on the fence.
After the meeting but before the vote, McCarthy told reporters that "we may have a battle on the floor, but the battle is for the conference and the country, and that's fine with me."
"Look, I have the record for the longest speech ever on the floor, I don't have a problem getting a record for the most votes for Speaker too," he added.
Judging from early statements by key Republican holdouts, the conservatives had a long list of demands they believed McCarthy has failed to meet.
Judging from early statements by key Republican holdouts, the conservatives had a long list of demands they believed McCarthy has failed to meet.
House Democrats, meanwhile, openly relished the internal chaos roiling the opposing party.
"We certainly are seeing chaos today in Congress, and this is an extension of the extremism that we have seen from the GOP," incoming House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
She accused McCarthy of having "thrown away his moral compass."
With at least five Republicans publicly vowing to oppose him and more quietly on the fence, Mr. McCarthy appeared short of the necessary votes, despite a series of major concessions he has made in an attempt to appease the far-right lawmakers.
“I am not going away,” Mr. McCarthy defiantly told Republicans in a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, which devolved into bitter squabbling as the leader berated his detractors and his critics vented their spleen, according to lawmakers who attended.
In a room in the basement of the Capitol, Mr. McCarthy made the case that the lawmakers opposing him were selfishly disrupting what was supposed to be a day of unity for their own personal gain.
“I earned this job,” Mr. McCarthy said.
“Bullshit!” came the response from Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, one of the hard-right Republicans opposing him. (She later told a reporter she did not shout anything during the meeting, but would not say whether she had spoken up.)
“He’s worked hard,” Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina, another of the defectors, said of Mr. McCarthy’s final plea during the meeting. “In his mind, he has.”
But Mr. Norman told reporters he still planned to oppose Mr. McCarthy.
Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, emerged from the meeting fuming.
“This meeting wasn’t about trying to inform people about what it takes to get to 218 and ask for what you want,” he told reporters. “This was about a beat down and a simulated unity in the room that doesn’t really exist.”
Mr. McCarthy’s allies were equally furious. One incoming committee chairman, Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama, who is set to lead the Armed Services Committee, declared during the meeting that those who opposed Mr. McCarthy should lose their committee assignments, according to people in the room.
If Mr. McCarthy is unable to win the support he needs on the first ballot, lawmakers would take successive votes until he or a different nominee secured enough supporters to prevail. No speaker election has gone to multiple ballots since 1923, but Mr. McCarthy has vowed to fight for the job on the House floor until the very end.
Mr. McCarthy’s allies have insisted that the Republican leader would stop at nothing to win the job, and they previewed plans to try to cajole more of the holdouts — especially incoming freshmen who have yet to publicly declare positions — on Tuesday.
“I think we can get there,” Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio told reporters as he left a meeting in Mr. McCarthy’s office on Monday night.
Asked how many ballots it would take for Mr. McCarthy to prevail, Mr. Jordan replied, “We’ll see tomorrow.”
In the months leading up to the vote, Mr. McCarthy had made a series of concessions to win over the defectors, including encouraging his members to vote against the lame-duck spending bill to fund the government and calling on Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, to resign or face potential impeachment proceedings.
Over the weekend, in a last-ditch effort to sew up the votes, Mr. McCarthy put forward his most significant offers yet. He unveiled a package of rules governing how the House operates, including the so-called Holman rule, which allows lawmakers to use spending bills to defund specific programs and fire federal officials or reduce their pay.
His biggest concession was agreeing to a rule that would allow five lawmakers to call a snap vote at any time to oust the speaker. That had been a top demand of conservatives who had previously used the procedure to drive out Speaker John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio.
But it was not enough to appease the obstreperous right flank of his party, which wanted any single lawmaker to be able to force such a vote. After Mr. McCarthy announced the concessions, nine more Republicans emerged — most of whom had previously expressed skepticism about his bid for speaker — to criticize Mr. McCarthy’s efforts to win them over as insufficient.
At the same time, some moderate supporters of Mr. McCarthy said they were unsettled by the hefty concessions, arguing that a small group of naysayers should not be allowed to hijack the new majority.
